Is oxalate toxicity really something you are dealing with? Many are confused about that! We get a lot of questions about symptoms. If you are wondering if your health issues might be related to oxalate, please take a look at these links: lowoxalate.info/misc/issues.html or http://lowoxalate.info/research.html. This information is from a website that belongs to Susan Owens and may help you to decide if trying the diet makes sense for you.
**If you decide that you may be dealing with oxalate toxicity/ issues, the single most important advice for you is as follows: REDUCE YOUR OXALATE INTAKE SLOWLY! (This is particularly important if you've been eating a very high oxalate diet or you have significant health issues!)
We really can’t stress this enough - please go slow.
If you are eating over 500 mg of oxalate per day, you should come down no more than 5% per week - at reduction, that means about 20 weeks to get to a low oxalate diet of 40-60 mg per day for an adult. (We do NOT recommend going below 40 mg of oxalate a day). Essentially, you are trying to reduce by about 25 mg of oxalate each week.
If you are eating 500 or less mg of oxalate a day, you might be able to come down 10% per week - which still means about 10 weeks if you are starting at 500 to get to a fully compliant low oxalate diet. That means you are coming down about 50 mg of oxalate per week.
If you are reducing 5% per week (which is a bit tough to do) it works like this: say you are eating 500 mg of oxalate per day now; week one you would drop to 475 mg per day; week two, you would drop to 450 mg; and so on. So, you need to know an average daily oxalate intake (which means either journalling for a week or so, or if you have a very good idea of your "regular" eating patterns), calculating how much oxalate that is and then planning a way to reduce.
Note that it's NOT hard to eat 1,000 or more milligrams of oxalate per day if you are focused on foods like spinach, sweet potato, nuts - especially almonds - beets or beet greens, rhubarb, gluten free flour alternatives including teff and nut flours, quinoa, hemp, soy, etc. (Yep - all that "healthy" stuff....)
Not a fan of tracking your food? You might do better by trying to reduce by removing foods or reducing serving sizes, in combination with keeping 1 or 2 higher oxalate foods, to use in measured doses. What this means is you might keep a very high oxalate food (let’s say something like peanuts), and then every other day or so, eat a serving of them, as you reduce overall. Why would you do this? Intermittency may be very helpful! What that means is as you remove high oxalate foods, try to have a measured dose of a food in the 50-100 mg range, which may help to keep oxalate dumping more moderated. (And it also means less counting.)
For those who have had extremely high oxalate diets - you may actually need a small serving of a food that might be in the 200-300 mg range. But this is something that you will have to experiment with, and see how you do. This principle of having an intermittent dose of a high oxalate food, and then slowly increase the time between doses, and reduce the oxalate level in the dose, may help with managing dumping. However, you'll have to follow your body, and how you feel. When in doubt, you are trying to find the lowest oxalate dose that will actually stop dumping - so it's not about any kind of "one size fits all". This means you have to pay attention, and that you'll need to see how things work for you.
And in order to plan how to reduce your oxalate intake, you need our spreadsheet of oxalate testing. You can get that by joining our TLO - Spreadsheet group. It's a key resource!
You may also want to become a member of other targeted TLO subgroups. We have a number of them, which allow you to learn in the aspects of diet that you are interested in! FOR ALL THESE GROUPS, you will need to send the email address that you use for Facebook to the corresponding moderators who help manage the group.
To join our basic subgroups for TLO - Spreadsheet, TLO - Food and Recipes, and TLO - Gardening, please send the email address that is on file in Settings on Facebook via 'private message' (PM) to one of (Annie Flanders, Cynthia Fuller, Teri Carstens Juneman, Tracey Moys or Britney Ware). We will get you an email invitation!
We have two specialized diet related groups. For those of you who want to join TLO - Vegans, please send a message to one of (Annie Flanders, Cynthia Fuller, Teri Carstens Juneman, Tracey Moys or Britney Ware).
For those of you who want to join TLO - Carnivores, you also send the email address that you use for Facebook, but in this case to Anna Nieminen or Annie Flanders.
For those who have Lichen Sclerosus or Lichen Planus, there is the LOD for Lichen Sclerousus group. Please contact Annie Flanders or Susan Owens
For those who have EDS or Autism, there are the TLO - EDS and Hypermobility group and the TLO - Autism group. Again, please contact Annie Flanders or Susan Owens
Last but not least, we have added a new group called TLO - Testing, and Monique Attinger - nutritionist is our main coordinator here! You can also contact the indefatigable Annie Flanders to be added to this group. Again, send the email address that you use for Facebook via Messenger, and one of our folks can add you.
Why are all these groups private and unable to be found on a search? We are actually trying to ensure that anyone who joins the group will have come through our Trying Low Oxalates main group, so that everyone on these groups have some knowledge of oxalate. Note that we take the time to check the information posted, including recipes, etc. Each subgroup will try to be focused on a subset of the oxalate world, so that folks have a better idea of where to go looking for certain types of information.
With this in mind, please keep discussions of health issues on the main Trying Low Oxalates group. What we want to do is help people by keeping most of the health discussions accessible to all members (unless very specific to either the Vegan or Carnivore way of eating).
Please check out the rest of Unit 1, for more. And don't forget that our Files section is another great location for good information on oxalate!
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